In recent years, a wireless LAN system complying with IEEE802.11 has been widely used. Along with this, there has been proposed a technique in which a wireless LAN terminal readily discovers, with low power consumption, a wireless LAN application and information obtained by communication. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0036540 describes Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN), defined by Wi-Fi Alliance, for discovering a usable service and information before a wireless LAN terminal is connected to a nearby wireless LAN compatible terminal.
In NAN, a plurality of wireless LAN terminals form a cluster (to be referred to as a NAN cluster hereinafter). During a discovery window (DW) as a cyclic period, the terminal joining the NAN cluster transmits/receives a signal (to be referred to as a sync beacon hereinafter) for indicating the period of the DW and a signal for sharing application information and the like. The DW is a period during which the wireless LAN terminal joining the NAN cluster can share the existence of the terminal and information about a service application. A terminal which provides a service application transmits a service provision signal during the period of the DW. A terminal which is searching for a service application transmits a service request signal during the period of the DW.
In NAN, if a terminal detects a plurality of NAN clusters, it selects a NAN cluster to join based on the master preferences, for deciding to operate in a master role, of terminals respectively operating in anchor mater roles for deciding the timings of the DWs in the detected NAN clusters.